Stargazing Guy

Follow for a weekly list of forthcoming astronaut* birthdays.

Maybe you share a birthday?!

If not, perhaps it will be you who adds your name to the list?!

If you do share a birthday, what does it mean to you?

Do you feel a connection, pride? They take to the skies (on controlled explosions) to improve the world, to explore (to travel to strange new worlds).

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26 August 1932 Joseph Henry Engle (NASA) US.

26 August 1942 John E. Blaha (NASA) US.

26 August 1959 Kathryn P. Hire (NASA) US.

27 August 1941 Yuri Malyshev (RKA) Russia.

27 August 1958 Sergei Krikalev (RKA) Russia. One of the more unusual history makers as Krikalev was stranded on board the Mir during the dissolution of the Soviet Union on 26 December 1991. As the country that had sent him into space no longer existed, his return was delayed and he stayed in space for 311 consecutive days, twice as long as the mission had originally called for. With the Baikonur Cosmodrome and the landing area both being located in the newly independent Kazakhstan, there was a great deal of uncertainty about the fate of his mission. In addition to this, because Krikalev spent so much time in space traveling at high velocities, time dilation (or the slowing down of clocks) caused him to be 0.02 seconds younger than other people born at the same time as him. He returned to Earth on 25 March 1992 and is sometimes referred to as the “last Soviet citizen”.

27 August 1965 Oleg Kotov (RKA) Ukraine. Another birthday mishap. According to supercluster.com and Wikipedia his birthday is 27 October 1965 – so close.

28 August 1960 Leroy Chiao (NASA) US.

29 August 1948 Charles Walker (McDonnell Douglas) US.

29 August 1959 Chris Hadfield (CSA) Canada.

29 August 1960 Thomas Marshburn (NASA) US.

30 August 1971 K. Megan McArthur (NASA) US.

30 August 1931 Jack Swigert (NASA) US. One of the Apollo astronauts, he flew with Lovell and Haise on the ill-fated Apollo 13. Swigert was the astronaut who first announced, “Houston, we’ve had a problem here”. Ironically, due to the “slingshot” route around the Moon they chose to safely return to Earth, the Apollo 13 astronauts flew farther away from Earth than any other astronauts before or since, though they had to abort the Moon landing.

31 August 1945 Leonid Popov (RKA) Ukraine

31 August 1953 Pavel Vinogradov (RKA) Russia. __________________________________________________________________

Thanks to www.supercluster.com for the bios and links.

Also, thanks to www.pillownaut.com for the initial list of birthdays, and the many, many resources on the internet, especially Wikipedia and NASA.      

* = includes cosmonaut, taikonaut, parastronaut, spaceflight participant, space tourist, etc

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PS: I love coffee. BuyMeACoffee, leave a message with a date and time and we can share it, remotely, at the same time, and think about the Cosmos.

In the meantime, take care of yourself and if you can, someone else, too, because as Adam Smith said, “we naturally desire not only to be loved but to be lovely”.

Remember, hope lives here.

Contact Stargazing Guy for any copyright-related requests or queries @ stargazer1@stargazingguy.co.uk